Postcard History

The Theme this Sunday is The Civil War

The Garthright House

Across the road from the field where the Battle of Cold Harbor was fought stands a simple plantation house that dates back to the 1770s. The deeds and other property records were lost during the war so the identity of the first Garthright ancestor has been lost, but from the day of the battle, every minute of the home’s history has been dutifully recorded.

In the heat of the Cold Harbor battle, on June 1, 1864, Union forces took control of the home and turned the first floor into a field hospital. Curiously, the family was not turned out or arrested. Their fate was an early case of house arrest. They were sequestered in the basement and forced to stay until the wounded were cared for.

Years later the family recounted in detailed memoirs how they endured the horror of watching blood drip through the floorboards. And, it was not just the Union Army’s blood that soaked the floors. After General Grant moved his army to Petersburg, the Confederate surgeons commandeered the house to treat their own wounded.

There is no official record as to how soon the Garthright family returned to their ancestral plantation, but it is likely that they did so as soon as it was safe. With that in mind, tales have circulated among local residents that lights have been seen when the house was supposedly vacant, and others have seen a specter of a young girl (perhaps seven or eight years old) alone in the front yard. Many who recount the tales of a ghost believe the girl is the daughter of the cemetery’s caretaker.  

In the years since the 1880s tales of knocks, bangs, and disembodied voices have kept squatters away from the property, but currently (2008) the Park Service has rented the house to a ranger who has claimed that no spirit, ghost, or apparition has bothered him or his family.

Three Daughters of the Confederacy

The author of this very well imagined novel, Cyrus Townsend Brady, was born in 1861 at Allegheny, Pennsylvania. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1883. In 1889, he was ordained a deacon in the Episcopal Church of America and was ordained a priest in 1890.

Brady’s work ethic was strong, and he was highly opinionated. His first (1898) major book, For Love of Country, told the story of a fictitious John Seymour, a character based in part on the true heroics of Nicholas Biddle, one of the first five captains of the Continental Navy.

Three Daughters of the Confederacy arrived in bookstores in September 1905. It is historical fiction that follows the lives of three Southern women during the American Civil War. The separate stories explore their personal experiences, including love, loss, and adventure, within the context of the war and its impact on society.

The three main characters, Miss Ellen Jones, Miss Edith Darrell, and Miss Rosalie Trent, are daughters of the Confederacy. Their lineage is irrelevant since the novel delves into their individual journeys, as the “Lady of the Sea,” (Miss Ellen); the “Girl on the River,” (Miss Edith); and the “Maid of the Valley (Miss Rosalie). To satisfy the curiosity of his readers Brady highlights the challenges they had to overcome as women living through the social uproar and political chaos of the South.

Brady was also famous for his opposition to feminism and Women’s suffrage: he preached many anti-suffrage sermons and described women voters as “an insult to God.”

He died in Yonkers, New York at age 58.

Brady dedicated his novel to the New York Chapter of the Fair Daughters of the Confederacy. The postcard is a publisher’s notice for the book. If you wanted a copy, you could mail $1.50 to the G. W. Dillingham Company, New York.

Birth Place of Stonewall Jackson, Clarksburg, W. Va.

It is not unusual for birthplaces to “disappear” under the debris that time creates. In all too many American neighborhoods, city commissions or city councils would rather teardown an old building than preserve the history that shapes the soul of our nation. Some have dubbed such actions “skyline improvement.”

That was certainly not the case when Clarksburg, West Virginia, razed the home of a man who was a hero to many and a villain to others. It was another case of the revision historians who used demolition as a tool to color the pages of our history books with grey images of their “cock-eyed” ideals to replace the crystal-clear reality of history.

When Stonewall Jackson died on May 10, 1863, President Lincoln did not publicly comment on his death, but there is a record of Lincoln expressing his grief to a friend. He said, “I have lost a great and good man. He was my friend, and I shall miss him greatly.”

The “Stonewall” part of Jackson was only his public persona. In private he was a much different person and it is the private man that should be immortalized. The reasons are compelling, but they question the efficacy and desirability of changing history to avoid uncomfortable situations or hurt feelings. It is time to grow up America. Read history and accept it; if you don’t like it, work to make it better, not different.

As this Fifth Sunday history lesson closes, let PostcardHistory share a magazine photo we found. Published circa 1895, this photo begs the question, “Is there so little space in Clarksburg that the building of the adjacent structure had to be done as it is seen here?”